The Australia national football team has arrived in Dhaka Monday to play their seventh 2018 Fifa World Cup qualifier.
The Bangladesh team returned home on Saturday night after playing their sixth match in the qualifier away to Tajikistan on Thursday.
The Socceroos arrived on Monday evening in Dhaka in probably their shortest tour ever. The team reached their hotel from the airport sometime around 9pm.
They will head straight to the airport as soon as the match at the Bangabandhu National Stadium is completed.
The 5:30pm start at the Big Bowl is being highly anticipated for several reasons one of which is the tightened up security measures taken surrounding the clash.
Bangladesh is set to provide its highest security to ahead of their Fifa World Cup qualifier. The security measure has been the agenda for the past one month and the recent terrorist attacks in Paris only increased the magnitude of the concern.
Sheikh Mohammad Maruf Hasan, DIG (police), who is also the security head of Bangladesh Football Federation and a security officer of AFC, assured that, “We have taken security measures as per FIFA recommendations. We have taken a two-layer security at the airport, with Armed Police battalion and police in front.”
“Four-layer protection on route to the hotel. We have ensured uninterrupted traffic system while they will be on their way from airport to hotel, hotel to venue, etc. Four-layer security at the venue,” he added.
Read more: Socceroos arrive today under security blanket
Maruf also informed that the spectators will not be allowed to bring anything other than tickets and mobile phones inside the venue. Security personnel will be deployed on top of the tall buildings surrounding the stadium while it is needless to say that there will be heavy security inside the venue too.
“There was no need for any extra securities after the Paris attack. We had already taken enough security measures. If you want to compare the security measures for this match, you can only compare it to the one taken for the 2011 friendly match between Argentina and Nigeria,” Maruf said.
The gates will open at 2:30pm, three hours ahead of the kick-off.
